Remembered As Model To Youth, Astronaut Is Buried In Hometown

LAKE CITY, S.C. -- Shuttle astronaut Ron McNair, remembered as a model to American black youth who died ``touching the other sides of the stars,`` was buried Saturday near his hometown.

Minutes before the burial, 300 people attended a funeral at Wesley United Methodist Church, two blocks off Ron McNair Boulevard, the main street in his hometown of 7,000 people. Twelve astronauts, including South Carolina native Charles Bolden, attended the services.

McNair`s flag-draped casket, surrounded by flowers, sat in the front of the church before the funeral began as an organist played Amazing Grace.

McNair, 35, was killed in the Jan. 28 explosion of the shuttle Challenger. His body lay in state Friday at the Statehouse in Columbia.

``Ron and his crewmates touched that light`` of the stars, actress Cicley Tyson, a friend of the family, said during the services. ``They touched us. They touched the other sides of the stars for us.``

The Rev. Eliott Mason, former pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Los Angeles, referred to McNair`s role of ``mission specialist`` on shuttle flights.

``I think of Ron primarily as a man who had a mission for the kingdom of God, in the deep spiritual sense, just as he was a specialist on board the shuttle. I see his whole life as a person with a mission.